Alphabets 2: Round for Seven Voices
by DarkBeta
Summary: AU. Sentinels are scary. Guides aren't. At least . . . that's what they want you to think! Yet another riff on Susan Foster's GDP universe.
1. Chris Larabee

Alphabets 2: Round for Seven Voices, Chapter 1, by DarkBeta

_(Once again, The Magnificent Seven, The Sentinel, and Susan Foster's GDP universe are not mine. Neither is Mog's modern-day Mag7 universe, to which this has a merely tangential relationship.)_

The tangle on Chris Larabee's desk could be mistaken, at first sight, for a sort of horse harness. The nylon straps were black. They always were, as if a man could not be properly broken while wearing sky blue or green. Chris glared at it, with a loathing wasted on the inanimate.

The guide's leash meant that the weapon vendors the Mountain Area Guard had been after were trafficking in flesh as well. Which meant, procedurally, that he should turn the case over to the GDP. Denver wasn't big enough to have more than a GDP contact office. They'd call in personnel from the training centers in San Jose or even Cascade.

Strangers. Coming into his territory.

Well, the GDP was a beauracracy. (So was the MAG. Since Larabee had little trouble circumventing rules with which he disagreed, that didn't trouble him.) The GDP investigators would need a week or two to get their act together. Maybe his team could hand them a closed case as they got off the plane, send 'em back to the coast before they ever left Denver International.

Chris pulled a pad of paper from under the harness. First step, have JD run a search for pirate web sites. Tell Buck to ask around the party circuit. Set up a background so Standish could go in as a buyer.

The undercover agent wasn't going to be happy. He hated sex cases. They made him sick -- literally. A couple of times, when he couldn't snag Buck or J.D. quickly enough, Chris had been the one stuck holding the agent's head once the bust was over. Keeping the G-- D--- Panderers out of Denver was worth the cost.

"Ezra, did ya ever hear the nursery rhyme? 'A dillar, a dollar, a ten o'clock scholar?'"

Chris looked up as he heard Buck in the outer office. J.D. chimed in.

"I know that one! '. . . why are you come so soon? You used to come at ten o'clock and now you come at noon!'"

"Many thanks for the folkloric demonstration, gentlemen. I assure you, my childhood hours were employed in more remunerative endeavours than nursery rhymes."

"Ey, Ez. Chris wants to talk to you."

"Ez-rah, Vin. Not 'Ez'. Even your laconic manner should be able to encompass that second syllable."

Vin snorted. Ezra Standish rapped politely on the frame of the open office door. He walked in already talking.

"If this concerns last week's expense request, Mr. Larabee, I assure you I recorded a fair and equitable replacement cost for the suit jacket . . . ."

Chris knew better than to wait for a break in the conversation.

"I have something for you . . . ." he started, gesturing at the half-finished list on his desk.

He was ready to ignore Ezra's usual argument. Silence caught his attention.

He looked up. Standish wore his usual half smile, but his nightclub pallor was fading to something vampiric. They stared at each other.

Guesses Chris Larabee had never allowed himself to make clicked into place. Standish saw that he knew. The agent turned and walked away. Chris stood up, watching him move toward the outer door of the MAG Seven office.

He wasn't running. Running would attract attention. Buck, JD and Nathan hadn't noticed the flight. Even Vin only looked inquiringly at Chris.

Ezra always had a backup plan. There would be a rented locker close by. Cash, fake ID, a change of clothes. Once he got out that door, Ezra P. Standish would vanish.

"Buck. Stop him!" Chris ordered.

Buck took a couple seconds to flick a paper football across JD's desk.

"I never heard you say a word, Chris. How'd ya manage to piss 'im off already? Come on, Ezra. You know Chris can go off half-cocked. Give us a chance to talk him 'round . . . ."

He caught the smaller man's shoulder. Standish turned. One open-handed strike and a sharp jab threw Buck back. Standish's own flinch was so controlled as to be almost invisible.

Everyone stared.

"You hit Buck. Ezra, why'd you hit Buck?" JD asked.

Standish backed away. The door opened behind him. Sanchez blinked across a box of donuts. Standish stepped sharply sideways. One of his several personal weapons appeared in his hand, threatening the room without actually singling out a target. Chris reached for his own weapon.

A guide wouldn't shoot. A guide couldn't hurt or kill, for terror of the psychic feedback. But he'd seen Ezra fire, in defense of the team, and he'd seen the targets die. Which meant, if he'd driven the guide to panicked flight, that the danger to his team was real.

"You don't need that, son," Sanchez rumbled.

"Be assured I am no kin to anyone in this office," Standish told him, his half-smile so stiff it looked cast in plaster. "You should appreciate that fortunate circumstance."

"Who will you shoot first? Surely not the kid. Maybe you found Buck's boots under the wrong bed, but he doesn't deserve to die. And you owe your life to Nathan, a dozen times over. A bullet would be a real bad payback."

Josiah's low, weathered voice was hypnotic. Nathan and JD crouched by the wheezing Buck Wilmington. Standish backed toward the wall to keep both Sanchez and his boss in view. His eyes flicked from one person to the next.

Chris couldn't risk moving forward. Ezra kept a closer watch on him than any of the others. Josiah shifted in place, dragging Ezra's attention to his looming presence.

"You can't really think a couple shots from that little popgun will stop Chris Larabee. So will you shoot me, Ezra? Is that what you're going to do?"

Standish sighed. He straightened. With the hand not holding his weapon, he adjusted the hang of his suit jacket. Chris listened to a heart rate that gave the lie to the outward insouciance.

"No, Mr. Sanchez. I'm not going to shoot you."

Chris lunged forward, a wordless shout acknowledging he was going to be too late. The half smile was still on Ezra's face, as he brought the weapon under his chin.

"Sorry, Ez," Vin said, reaching across his shoulder to deflect its barrel.

His blow pulled the guide's finger against the trigger. The gun went off. The bullet ricocheted three times off the concrete slabs of the wall and ceiling and embedded itself in the "THOM-ZYL" file drawer.

Shouts of alarm came from the offices on either side. Nathan, Buck and JD uncurled from the tangle caused by each of them trying to shield the other two. Josiah bent over to pick up the donuts he'd dropped.

"Guess I better toss these out."

"Waste of good food," Vin complained.

He set the safety, tossed the gun to Chris, and caught Ezra's wrists behind him. The agent didn't struggle.

"An unnecessary exertion, Mr. Tanner. I am not so foolish as to try my martial skills against you or Mr. Larabee."

"'N I'm not dumb enough to think you only got one gun."

"Keep him in my office," Chris said.

He handed the gun to Buck, as runners pounded along the hallway outside.

"Better tell JD what's going to happen the next time he gets careless with a loaded weapon."

"But I didn't . . . why are you picking . . . it wasn't my fault!" JD sputtered.

"Now, kid, ya got to listen to old Buck. It doesn't pay to take these things lightly. Why, I knew a man in Amarillo . . . ."

Teams Six and Eight arrived. Their scolding and jeers, Buck's shouts, JD's red-faced attempts at self-defense, and a long-winded parable from Josiah, made a cacaphony. Chris folded his arms, waiting for the moment of maximum confusion.

Without instructions, Buck picked up on the need to keep Ezra's name out of this. He jumped on the kid every time JD might have said something he shouldn't. And Josiah had drawn Nathan aside. Ezra always turned up in Nathan's rants, so the other teams wouldn't react to it.

They worked together like fingers of a hand, better than he'd ever hoped for. Ezra had seemed to understand his value to the team, had seemed to give them a tentative trust. It had all been lies.

Chris glowered, stoking his anger. Members of the other teams began to look uneasily in his direction. A few of them decided the interesting events were over, and eased toward the door.

Rage was good. Rage was a reliable cloak over the discovery that another man held his life. And the knowledge that Death was no longer the friend Chris had awaited two years before.


	2. Vin Tanner

Alphabets 2: Round for Seven Voices, Chapter 2, by DarkBeta

Vin leaned against the wall inside Larabee's office, watching the seated man.

"Just keep your hands where I can see them," he advised. "Saves me the trouble of cuffing you. And you the trouble of sliding out of 'em."

Ezra would have looked casually relaxed, if he weren't so still. He didn't look toward the exit. Of course, Standish had been called into Larabee's office so often, he probably had the layout and escape routes memorized.

Ezra didn't look at Vin either. He didn't open his mouth, not even for some smart answer that would only get him into more trouble. How had things gone to shit so fast?

The straps on Chris's desk would be part of it. There were words to make things work again. Vin was sure of it. He couldn't think of them. He needed time and solitude to come up with words like that, hours alone under the jewel-colored stars. He had to hope that Chris could do better.

Outside Chris's level voice cut across the hubbub.

"Team Seven, my office. Everyone else . . . out."

Within a remarkably short time the outer office was empty. The other five crowded into the small inner office. Chris sat behind his desk again. Buck and JD joined Vin in propping up the wall behind Ezra. Josiah loomed in the doorway, as if reluctant to move into the room and crowd the others. Nathan stalked toward the seated prisoner.

"Have you gone out of your head? What is the matter with you?"

"Uh, Ezra, if this is because of the spray paint on your Jag, um, that wasn't Buck. I'm the one you shoulda hit. It'll wash off, really. It's this special gunk I ordered over the Net . . . ."

JD leaned forward, trying to catch Ezra's eye. The agent was still smiling faintly as he watched Chris. He didn't turn his head. JD saw Larrabee's glare and went back to examining the baseball cap in his hands.

Vin didn't like that smile. He didn't have a good feeling about any of this.

"Seems like it wasn't your little prank Ezra reacted to," Josiah pronounced. "Am I right, brother? I believe he has something he wants to tell us."

"Mr. Sanchez, your hypothesis is entirely in error. I have nothing at all I wish to say. In fact my only desire is to depart, as my presence may continue to disrupt your daily labors. If Mr. Larabee will consent . . . ."

"Now, maybe a rest would do you some good," Nathan agreed. "Whatever kind of problems you've got . . . ."

Chris's arm swept the top of his desk clear. Vin was the only one of them who didn't jerk in surprise.

In the momentary silence, Chris set an electronic device on the desk and switched it on. He looked at Vin. Vin slipped past Josiah into the outer office.

The other MAG agents were gone. He heard some talk about the gunshot from neighboring offices, but mostly the agents had gone back to their work. He locked the door and put a chair to block it. Just to be sure he checked for bugs, and found none. Behind him, Chris's office was a humming emptiness. Vin went back in as smoothly as he'd left.

"Can't hear a thing. I locked the outside door. We're clear."

"That's a white-sound generator. Cool! It's a state-of-the-art model too. Are we being bugged? Can I look at it?"

JD reached for the device. Buck pulled him back with a hand on his shoulder.

"Hold on, kid. Chris got that out for a reason."

"Mr. Larabee, you don't need to say anything at all. Tell your excellent watchdogs to stand down, and simply allow me to depart the office. In respect of the service I have provided to this team's endeavours, surely I am owed that much."

Ezra was talking again. That was a good sign. Wasn't it? Chris ignored him. When Ezra spoke again, his voice was high and uncertain.

"Mr. Larabee, I will beg . . . ."

"He's a guide. An unbonded guide."

Ezra's hands tightened on the arms of the office chair. He closed his eyes. JD's jaw dropped. He took a couple steps farther from Ezra's chair, crowding against Buck.

"I knew there was something wrong about him!" Nathan said.

"That was not . . . particularly kind, Mr. Larabee."

Chris hadn't known. Hadn't let himself know, more like. A seep turned part of the desert green, and Chris dug at dry sand instead. A warm fire burned on a chilly night, and Chris turned his back on it and said there was no light.

Every time Vin thought he understood what the loss of Sarah had done to his friend, he found he'd underestimated the damage.

"Have you called GDP Recruitment yet?" Nathan asked Chris. "How long do we need to hold him?"

"Don't bring them here. Give me a little lead time. Just half an hour."

A man's heart wasn't supposed to beat that fast. Any more, and Nathan would be pulling out that defib gadget. Even Buck or Josiah should be able to see how pale Ez had gone. What was Chris doing?

"I never saw a guide before. Father Miguel told us why they had to stay away from normal people though. He said they just couldn't help thinking about, um, occasions for sin," JD whispered to Buck. "And 'cuz of what they are, they put those thoughts into other people's heads."

Vin shifted his feet, wishing again for the right words. That kind of argument was what a guide did. JD's whisper was very little less carrying than his ordinary voice. Ezra spoke without looking away from Larabee.

"You must have evidence of a truly alarming profligacy on my part, to offend sensibilities untroubled by sharing a domicile with Mr. Wilmington. Five minutes, Mr. Larabee!"

Vin couldn't follow that, but Josiah laughed. JD looked over his shoulder at Buck.

"What did he say?"

Buck shrugged.

"Or perhaps I carry the infection of a less universal sin, Mr. Dunne? With your skills at electronic manipulation, opportunities for self-enrichment cannot be sparse. Alas, it seems I have failed to tempt you even into the pursuit of lucre."

"Somebody did call the GDP, didn't they? You want me to take care of it?" Nathan asked again.

That distracted Chris from staring silently at the guide, at least for an instant.

"Stay here!"

Ezra leaned back slightly, and let his gaze drop.

"Which -- in answer to your inquiry, Mr. Jackson -- implies that the GDP has not been contacted. How . . . irregular."

"Chris wouldn't turn a rabid dog in to the GDP," Buck said.

Buck knew. Make that, Buck had known all along. Like Vin, he'd been waiting for nature to take its course. Vin let out a huff of breath. They should've known better than to expect Ezra t'pay attention to nature. Or Chris.

"Buck, what're you talking about?"

For once Buck ignored JD's whisper. He and Ezra stared at each other, and then Ezra shifted his look of mild inquiry back to Chris.

"Shall I hazard a guess as to the alternative that will be proffered? A certain unnamed agency seldom interferes in private arrangements, so long as the constraint of one party is suitably demonstrated. How many months did the experts allot you, Mr. Larabee, before end-stage Fincham's ensued?"

JD's stare switched to Chris as if he was watching volleys in a tennis game.

"None of your business," Chris growled.

"You're going into Fincham's Syndrome?" Nathan asked. "You're a sentinel? Why didn't you tell me? You've been risking your life every time you go into the hospital! I need to read up on sentinel-safe dosages . . . ."

"Four months," Buck said. "Four months, when Judge Travis offered him the chance to put this team together."

Vin didn't have Ezra's poker face, but nobody was looking at him. He ducked his head. The long hair Buck teased him about swung forward like a curtain.

Chris had been that close to the end stage? Vin could have lost him that quickly?

"You knew Chris was a sentinel, and you didn't tell me? Buck, why didn't you tell me?" JD asked, the sense of betrayal loud in his voice.

"Four months. And here we all are, a full two years later. How unexpectedly durable of you, Mr. Larabee. A testament to the effectiveness of alcohol as a depressant. Well, as I'm surplus to your requirement, surely you can have no objection to my departure . . . ."

Ezra stood up, already turning toward the door. Buck took a step away from the wall.

"Hold up. Chris ain't a quitter. Doesn't mean he can fight off Fincham's forever."

"Brother, you don't need to leave. You're part of the team now," Josiah added.

"Attaining a unanimous plebiscite on that issue might prove difficult," Ezra told him.

He did not look at Nathan. JD and Buck did.

Vin didn't say anything. He couldn't. Anything he said, Chris would take as a challenge. Right now, it might be. He'd seen Chris leaning on Ezra, drawn out of dark studies to argue with him, forced to focus by that smooth voice. The guide had saved the sentinel over and over, these past two years. And the sentinel didn't know it.

It wasn't like that, back in the Nation. For the first time in years, first time since he'd come to Denver and hooked up with Chris and all, Vin wished he could go back.


	3. Ezra Standish

Alphabets 2: Round for Seven Voices, Chapter 3, by DarkBeta

_(Y'know, i think Ezra is just a tad too suicidal in my stories.)_

Ezra had spent days sorting census data to map sentinel territories and find the unexpected gaps between them; months tracking down the unregistered sentinels who'd carved a space for themselves. Most of them were outlaws of one kind or another, tacitly ignored by their more respectable neighbors to avoid damaging conflict. Almost all of them had guides, of course. A sentinel couldn't survive without a guide.

Some of them tried. Registered sentinels who lost a longterm guide were put on a suicide watch, until the GDP could seduce them with another guide. An unregistered sentinel who lost his guide didn't usually last long enough to encounter another.

The sentinel personality was famous for rigidity, stubborness and endurance. Chris Larabee was at the high end of the charts for all three, to have fought off self-destruction for so long. Ezra had heard rumors of something called a Dark Sentinel. Sometimes he wondered if he'd found one.

But that didn't matter. What mattered was that loyalty to a dead guide made Larabee blind to the living one. The research was worth it, for two years without the GDP at his back.

Maud had thought he was taking too big a risk. Even if the sentinel remained blind, the guide's own self-destructive instincts might lure him into caring too much. Maud had been wrong. Ezra had used the sentinel's tragedy to give himself a safe harbor, and that was all.

"I didn't ask for a vote," Chris growled. "We take care of our own. You're not going to run out on us, Ezra."

He'd made plans for when he had to leave. Once he got out of this office, the sentinels would never find him. And rigidity could be so easy to manipulate, if you knew where the weak points were. He stood up, pushing the chair aside.

"Should I rely on your effectiveness as a guardian . . . ."

Buck groaned as Ezra paused for effect. Larabee's old friend was a large part of the reason the sentinel lasted long enough for Ezra to find him. Sentinels trusted so absolutely that almost all of them suffered devastating betrayals. Larabee had been lucky.

"Don't go there. Don't go there, Ez."

". . . as demonstrated in the past?"

Until now.

The office was so silent Ezra could hear his team-mates breathe, as if he was a sentinel himself. The Larabee glare made an effective paralytic. When lightning looked for a place to strike, you didn't want to attract its attention. Not if you were sane. Ezra wove his voice silkily across the hush.

"I have a due aversion to personal discomfort or damage, Mr. Larabee. I do not doubt that you will elicit . . . any desired behaviour. You'll have the lifeline you need, leading you out of sensory monomanias or the sudden excesses of stimulation. But sooner or later we'll be alone when you zone. Sooner or later your continued incapacity will offer me the opportunity to be free. Don't ever think . . . ."

Standing in front of Chris's desk, Ezra managed to find several feet of personal space even in the crowded office. He leaned forward. He was almost whispering, but every triumphant word was clear.

"Don't ever think that you can trust me."

He dropped into a Guide's working position with catalog perfection, kneeling, with his wrists crossed behind his back and his head bowed. And Vin's drawl broke across the spell of his words.

"Don't shoot, cowboy. I'm standing behind him."

The sharp bark of JD's laugh was more nervousness than humor. It cut off as Chris moved out from behind his desk. He stooped for the tangle of nylon. Ezra looked up, refusing to show his sudden panic. He'd ignored the second sentinel, assumed that his allegiance to Larabee would keep him from interfering. He'd forgotten that the younger man also had an interest in keeping a guide available.

He had to get out of here. He could not let the sentinels harness him.

"Brother Larabee, you don't want to be hasty," Josiah soothed.

No, calm was not what Ezra needed. Rage would give him a way to escape. And he knew -- he'd practiced -- how to drive Larabee into a rage.

"Am I mistaken as to your intent? Perhaps you will offer your protege a token of your esteem?"

Larabee swung the mass of harness like a flail. The impact against Ezra's shoulder and upper arm tossed him sideways. He rolled back to his knees. One hand touched the welt on his cheek from a stray end, and then dropped behind his back again. His voice broke the image of humility.

"Begin as you mean to go on, Mr. Larabee."

"I should claim you. Just so I'd have the right to shoot you."

The leader of Team Seven held the harness at arm's length, and dropped it. Ezra flinched from under it. The black straps puddled on the institutional brown carpet.

"From the minute you saw that, you didn't doubt I'd use it on you."

Ezra blinked, and cursed himself for the betrayal. What other explanation could a guide's harness have? Ezra had used the sentinel for two years, and now the sentinel meant to use a guide.

"I never doubt the ability of human beings to attend to their own interests."

"You should have trusted us."

"Between predator and prey, trust is stupidity."

Usually guides were the prey. Ezra had trained to be a predator instead. He should thank Maud for that. Assuming he would be in a position to do so. With a turn of his head, he drew everyone in the office into a closed circle.

"Look at your team, Mr. Larabee. Young Mr. Dunne. Torn between resolving his curiousity, and avoiding the guide's . . . miasma. If he squeezes any closer to the wall, the MAG will have to repaint."

JD moved an inch forward. He flushed, and glared at a grinning Buck.

"Mr. Wilmington. He values your interests more highly than you do. End-stage Fincham's is an ugly way to die, and he does hate ugly. I doubt my impressment rates nearly as low on his aesthetic scale."

Buck lost his smile. He waited until Ezra looked in his direction and nodded briefly, like a duellist's salute.

"Mr. Tanner. Another friend who'll put your interests above his own. He is a practical man, though. If you persist in avoiding the rational course, he might pick up what you let fall."

Only a very intent observer would have seen Larabee's glance at his friend. Vin flinched.

"That's a lie, Ez, and you know it!" he growled.

"Is it? Will it be, once Mr. Larabee is no longer a factor? You are still a young man. The rest of a lifetime, is a lot of years to throw away."

Larabee snarled.

"Damn you, Standish."

"You mean, Vin's a sentinel too? Nobody tells me anything!"

"If ya paid attention once in a while . . . ." Buck started to admonish JD, but his heart wasn't in it.

"Mr. Jackson. Or should I say, the future Dr. Jackson? Unless, of course, he's blacklisted by the GDP for sheltering a rogue. I believe the withdrawal of one's license to practice is automatic in such cases."

In an unexpected motion he scooped up the guide's harness, and tossed it across the floor to Nathan's feet. Nathan backed into the wall trying to avoid it.

"Perhaps you would be willing to affix the bonds yourself? There'd be a certain historical balance in it. And methods for rendering a rigid character pliable have not changed much in the past few centuries."

"It's not the same," Nathan muttered. "We're human . . . ."

"Are you?" Ezra asked, his drawl slowing to an offensive parody of itself. "Ah wondah what our respective ancestors would have said on the mattah, a few centuries ago."

Old stories and forgotten history seemed to stir in the room. Nathan clenched his fists, as if he and not Ezra was the prisoner watching for a chance to escape. Ezra made sure his own grin was properly taunting.

He could feel rage, like the wind of a wildfire. Rage, and confusion. He could feel the emotions, but Chris and Vin were tasting them. Even if the sentinels knew what he was doing, they could scarcely avoid meeting rage with rage. There would be shouting, conflict, violence. And, he was quite certain, errors that would give a calm mind the chance it watched for.

The part of him that calculated odds noted that the guide might not survive that conflict. His own death was not a desireable outcome. Neither was it (considering the alternative) entirely unacceptable.

The cards were dealt. He waited for the hand to play itself out.


	4. Josiah Sanchez

Alphabets 2: Round for Seven Voices, Chapter 4, by DarkBeta

A guide's place was beside a sentinel. Why did Ezra have to fight it so hard? Josiah began a slow, ironic applause.

"Excellent theatre, son. If you were trying to persuade us to live down to our worser selves."

Ezra gave him a skull's grin and looked back to Chris.

"I do not presume to know the outlook of Mr. Sanchez, though I would lay money he sees the hand of the Almighty bringing together guides and sentinels." He grimaced. "If, of course, it were possible for a guide to retain legal possession of funds or properties. Best consult my attorney about that, Mr. Larabee. You wouldn't want any monies to remain unclaimed."

"I don't want your money, Standish. Nobody here wants your money."

Nathan was recovered enough to add, "Except him."

Ezra sneered at him.

"You understand my weaknesses, eh? Greed and indifference being so very . . . un-guide-like. No need to investigate my past history further, when the number of black marks make it obvious nothing is hidden."

"All lies, was it?" Chris asked.

He set his weapon on the desk. The gesture fixed Ezra's attention. The agent's expression was almost eager. Josiah frowned to see it. Of course Chris and Ezra had moved so close to bonding that Ezra had to know the sentinel wouldn't harm him.

"Young Dunne is not the only source of electronic information, or misinformation," Ezra admitted. "Others are more likely to exercise such talents for their own gain . . . and I made certain said gain was considerable."

"I don't understand! You figured you could hide from the GDP in the MAG? But guides can sort of know when they're near a sentinel, right? He couldn't keep you in the dark. Not like us," JD added, looking sulky.

Watching Ezra, Buck knocked the kid's baseball cap off, and scrubbed a hand through his hair.

"Must've been a bad shock for you, when you found out about Chris."

Josiah chuckled.

"I doubt our brother was much surprised by anything he found here. Most of us think in patterns; what's possible, probably, logical, reasonable. Guides are good at looking outside that hierarchy. The GDP is not going to look for a rogue guide anywhere near an unbonded sentinel, so that's where he placed himself."

Ezra inclined his head without looking away from Larabee.

"Merci du complement."

"Of course, when you use a guide's gifts to hide, you justify the GDP excesses."

Chris glared. Even jovial Buck looked grim. Ezra's calm cracked into rage, and Josiah hoped he'd be drawn into argument. First and foremost, guides were empaths. Distract Ezra, and his shields would waver. Then he wouldn't be able to deny what support a sentinel could be to him.

His target's expression smoothed. He settled against the front of the desk with one knee drawn up, as if seating himself for a picnic with linen cloths and a wicker hamper. Josiah took what comfort he could in the guide's instinct to find security from a sentinel at his back. Ezra made himself the center of attention, even Larabee's black regard, and then gestured elegantly for Josiah to go on.

For an instant the words were lost. Josiah hunted for the thread of his sermon.

"Settlements outside a sentinel's territory poison themselves, or they're wiped out by violence. We need sentinels. Since they quickly fail and die without guides . . . ."

Chris added a sneer to his dark look.

". . . in most cases," Josiah interpolated, ". . . if guides run and sentinels can't leave their territories to look for them, someone else has to make sure they find each other."

Ezra nodded mildly at the harness by Nathan's feet.

"Not every dating service requires locks and chains and medication."

"Not supposed to be like that," Vin said. "In the Nation, everybody listens to a guide. Not just a sentinel, but everybody. They're marked with pollen at the dances . . . ."

"You never talk about the Nation, Vin!" JD protested. "Did you like living there? Did you have a teepee? Could I go visit with you sometime?"

Buck swatted him again.

"Kid, not now!"

"So the Indian Nation uses bribery instead of coercion to suborn guides? Much more to my taste. Unfortunately I doubt anyone here could manage the price I set on my freedom."

"Can't **buy** a guide," Vin insisted, wild-eyed at the idea, but Larabee smiled sardonically.

"Sure about that? I've got a spread outside the city that's worth a mint."

"The point," Ezra said, looking more irritated than terrified, "is that any monetary compensation would be inadequate."

"That's what the GDP wants you to think. Otherwise they'd be out of a job. If you despise them so much, why take their word for the way things are?" Josiah asked. "Sentinels and guides paired themselves for thousands of years before the GDP stuck their noses in it, and they'll be doing it for thousands of years after the GDP is a a footnote in the history books."

"How sad that we're caught in the mayfly interim."

"We are mayflies. And our afternoon is drawing to an end. " At Josiah's roar JD thumped back against the wall again. "You read the papers. Assassins killed four of the last ten presidents. Half the coastal cities are under water. What ground is left is full of poison from the bad years. Three-quarters of the Americas don't get enough to eat. Maybe that's why there's so much anger, so many people trying to push us the rest of the way over the edge."

"Without sentinels, war, starvation, plague and death all saddle up their bony horses; is that your argument? Playhouses close, museums burn, my favorite eating places disappear?"

"Just like a guide to jeer about it," Nathan muttered.

"Without sentinels, we can't hold on long enough to heal. Once it all falls apart, we won't have another chance to build better. We save ourselves, or we choose to fail. In a time when we need them so badly, sentinels and guides are the best argument I know for the Lord's watchful care. He gives us what we need, and He gives us the opportunity to get it wrong."

Josiah caught Ezra's eyes, trying to will understanding into him. Ezra looked back as steadily.

"And that's good reason to sacrifice a generation of guides . . . or more. Depending on the pace of your improvements."

The words sounded like agreement. Josiah knew better. He'd moved too fast. The argument that seemed persuasive when he planned it was empty breath in the stuffy room.

"Guides aren't happy alone. Human beings aren't happy alone! If you know you're needed, if you know you have a companion who won't abandon you, isn't that worth putting up with what the rest of the world gets wrong?"

He'd said too much, admitted too much. When he stopped speaking the silence stretched on. Emotion made space for itself.

"Who did you know, who was a sentinel?"

He should have remembered the undercover agent's skill at reading people. Josiah stepped back, just like JD, and bumped into Nathan. Ezra got to his feet and Josiah dropped his eyes. Everyone was looking at him.

He couldn't ask Ezra to sacrifice independence while he clung to outraged privacy. He swallowed.

"My sister. Hannah. She came on-line when I left home. My father thought she was acting up because she missed me. He thought he could beat the senses out of her."

He looked apology at Nathan. They'd been friends before either of them joined the Guard. It seemed foolish now, that he'd never told Nathan about someone so important to him. Nathan bit back whatever it was he wanted to say. As Josiah looked for Ezra again, he felt the silent comfort of his friend's hand on his shoulder.

He half-expected to see Ezra's tight smile without change, as if his words had been unheard, but the guide was somber.

"She died?"

"She zoned too deep for bonding. She's at the Sisters of Mercy. They think . . . they think it won't be long."

Children brought out the protective instincts Ezra always tried to hide. Would Hannah's story sway the guide? Was the sacrifice worth it?

"I'm sorry." Ezra paused, and Josiah held his breath. "Still, it's not my problem."

Josiah found his hands working as if to strangle something. He took a heavy breath.

"You live here. You eat. You breathe. You grieve when children die and innocents are hurt. The 'problem' belongs to all of us. For two years you've fought it here with the MAG. You know you can help."

"For two years I played a part."

"I don't reckon Denver's going to stay a haven without the Mountain Area Guard," Buck said, "and the MAG needs Chris, and he needs a guide. Are you really going to let it all go down the tubes?"

"If civilization dies without the sentinel-guide bond . . . let it die."

Ezra hadn't dropped his control. The rage he showed them, he meant to show. Josiah looked from him to Larabee, and realized why his imagination had always paired the two.

"Why?" he asked the guide. "Why are you so angry?"


	5. JD Dunne

**Alphabets 2, Part 5, by DarkBeta**

_(Poor JD. Here this is supposed to be his chapter, and Ezra gets to do all the talking. There are a few Sentinel references here, but anyone who's struggled this far into the story will either recognize them or can beep over them without worry.)_

JD thought it was a stupid question. They knew why Ezra was mad. He didn't want to take orders from a sentinel. Which was weird, really, because Ezra already did what Chris said – they all did – but Ezra got on his high horse over some weird things sometimes.

"Angry? I don't think I'm a wrathful man. No profit in it." Ezra shook his head. "But you asked, 'why?'"

Like his clothes. It had been just a little smear of paint. You couldn't hardly see it. Well, if Chris and Vin really were sentinels, maybe they could. But it wasn't like they cared. And it was just silly buying clothes from some place in Italy. How could you know they'd get your size right?

"I was in Cascade once. Years ago."

Now, why'd that make Buck straighten up and look grim? Cascade was a cool city. One of the biggest on the West Coast, now that L.A. was gone and San Francisco mostly underwater. JD had a couple Net buddies at Rainier he was going to go visit one of these days. BS seemed to have dropped off the board for a while – maybe he'd finally finished his diss – so it'd be fun to turn up on his doorstep and surprise him.

"In some part the visit was for my benefit; a matter of falsifying certain test results. Records can be quite mutable, for those who have money. Or the appearance of money. Guides show up so seldom in the more notable families . . . ."

"You get three years minimum for trying to bribe the GDP," Nathan said.

Ezra gave him a gentle smile. JD wasn't surprised when Nathan scowled harder.

"You mustn't suppose my dear Mother so inept as to allow said funds to leave her hands. I assure you, no bribery occurred. The putative recipient was left without means of complaint. Really, we provided a public service in supporting the moral standards that make the GDP so widely honored."

Chris snorted. Vin actually grinned. Josiah stared like he was trying to solve a puzzle.

"Always alert for a profitable opportunity, Mother found that one of those notable families did indeed have an inconvenient relative. A wealthy prominent businessman, just her type, had an estranged son who was a late-blooming sentinel. The father was determined to provide him with an acceptable partner, with or without his consent. Fatherly devotion is so touching. Certainly he found a sympathetic ear in my mother, and myself."

He simpered.

"Why, sir, even a scatter-brained guide can feel the lack of – oh, you'll think I'm silly! – of real purpose in my life. It would be so fulfilling to help your son hunt down rogue guides!"

Everybody stared at him. That was wrong. Nobody looked at a guide when there was a sentinel in the room. Maybe it was the way they kept their heads down, like they didn't want to be seen.

"I may have been annoying in my determination to leave a cold, wet, sentinel-ridden swamp behind. I'm inclined to think Mother was worried because I'd expressed some slight sympathy for the son's situation. At any rate, when the endeavour culminated ahead of schedule, it was necessary for her to be seen departing alone, and for me to remain in a place inaccessible to sentinel survey."

It wasn't fair. How did Ezra do it? Nobody listened to JD so intently, not even when he really had a funny joke.

"I admit, when men in GDP uniform pushed me into a rogue containment cell, my mother's hand in the matter was not immediately apparent. I was left alone. Food was brought to my cell at a different hour than the others. I should have deduced that my occupancy was unofficial. But I could hear . . . ."

Ezra swallowed, and started again. Vin was muttering. It didn't sound like curse words, exactly. JD looked at Chris, but not for very long. It was like looking at something very bright . . . or very dark. His eyes couldn't rest there.

"The perception of motive and intent . . . ."

He had to be doing it for effect. Didn't he? Ezra didn't show what he felt, not unless it was really important. (And Father Miguel said that guides needed sentinels to take care of them, because they were weak and over-emotional. Like girls. Except Casey would sure be mad if JD said something like that!)

"Mother couldn't have known . . . ."

"Skip ahead, already," Chris growled.

JD found himself pressed up against the wall again, and it wasn't Ezra he was worried about. He'd have been embarassed, except Josiah and Nathan and even Buck looked like they'd shuffled back a little too.

"Yes. Well. My situation could have been worse. I was passed daily by guards and deliveries headed to a containment area even more remote than the one I occupied. Its recalcitrant occupant was quarantined to keep his obduracy from metastasizing."

"So that's where you picked up your bad case of the stubborns," Buck said, grinning.

"Shut up!" JD hissed. "You can't make a joke about everything!"

Buck gave him a wounded look, but JD folded his arms. This was serious!

"Imprisonment is a dull existence, when you're not terrified. I admit to a possible excess of curiousity. And since physical methods of garnering data were shut to me . . . ."

"You couldn't be that dumb," Chris said.

"I chose a period of minimal traffic and let my shields lapse. Slightly. Don't look so concerned, gentlemen. Obviously I survived the experiment."

JD swallowed. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear any more. What did everyone know about except JD? Even Nathan looked a little worried.

"Dropping your shields in a place like that?" Buck raged. "You're lucky you didn't go into shock. Who'd have noticed, or pulled you out of it, eh?"

"There was never much risk. Sentinels are kept at a distance from the GDP's more strenuous proceedings. No need for Massa to dirty his hands with a whipping. That's what the overseer is for."

He smirked at Nathan. Chris growled. Like an animal.

"Explaining empathy to the current audience is as useless as Mr. Tanner here attempting to convey what stone tastes like. The prisoner's gender, youth, and physical appeal I know only from the conversations of the guards. I can say nothing about his history. What I do know is that he . . . shone."

"You make it sound like you fell in love," Buck jeered.

Why was Buck acting like that? It was like everybody was turning into somebody else. Buck was still watching Ezra, but he put a hand on JD's shoulder.

"He was generous with his strength. Without that prop, I might not have survived. I was unsettled when I became aware of the procedures in place for him, and the . . . disturbance . . . was painful for both of us. He may have believed it was my own situation I feared. He maintained his support, and I was not able to shield myself from it."

Ezra faced Chris's desk. He didn't look at Chris though. He looked at the ground. From the back, with his head down, he almost could have been a guide. JD looked at the harness by Nathan's feet. Ezra would hate wearing something like that. It'd mess up his clothes.

"The reverse was not true. When he became aware of the functionaries approaching him, I was slapped back inside my shields and bricked up as securely as a cask of Amontillado. I believe there was a permanent increase in the strength of my shields."

Ezra paused. For some reason he looked around at JD. When he spoke, his voice was dry and unemotional.

"At night they taught him the most effective way possible that he was an object of use."

Everybody thought JD was a kid, that he didn't understand stuff. JD knew what Ezra was talking about. At least, he thought he did. Not that he planned to actually think about it any more than he had to.

"Subject a gemstone to sufficient pressure, and it will shatter. Later, perhaps, than expected. Late enough for one to begin to hope . . . ."

Ezra turned to face Josiah. He'd raised his head again, and he didn't look like a guide at all.

"In answer to your question, Mr. Sanchez, what the GDP broke can't be put back together. And they never even knew what they had. They'll never even know!"

This was weird. This was totally weird. JD was crying like he'd just lost his mother. And there were tears on Josiah's face too, and Buck was taking deep breaths like he was going underwater.

"Now, Preacher, tell me to be patient. Tell me to turn the other cheek. Tell me there are good men in a bad system. I dare you!"


	6. Buck Wilmington

Alphabets 2: Round for Seven Voices, Chapter 6, by DarkBeta

_(In this story Chris and Sarah "meet cute". I may have overdone the "cute" though.)_

"Look at Chris."

Ezra and Josiah both swung around, like they'd forgotten anyone else was there. Josiah's eyes were wet. Buck could hardly believe it. Josiah was a force of nature, drinking, fighting or testifying. Didn't seem like the old man could hurt like that, after all he'd been through.

He'd been a man in the wide-horizoned world that fell apart while Buck was a toddler. He'd seen more of the world than anyone younger ever would, and he'd seen the best and worst of humans caught in the whirlwind. Ezra still managed to tie him up in knots. Dang, but guides were scary!

Sarah had been the same. She kept to the background mostly – and there'd been good reason for that, and no need inviting the neighbors in to pry – but once she set her mind on something a smart man got out of her way.

"Open your purblind eyes and look. You think Chris wants a guide he has to drag behind him like a suitcase? You think he likes the guppy-dupping pizzles poking in his business? You listen to me!"

Chris didn't shift expression, but Josiah came back from whatever grim place he'd been and almost smiled.

". . . if only for the fascination of your vocabulary," Ezra agreed.

J.D. began, "What's a guppy-dupping . . . ?" but Buck spoke over him.

"The summer we came back North Chris and I got ranch work, trying to put some cash together. He had his eye on land up toward the hills. We'd ridden that way a couple times, and Chris could smell water there. As for me, well, there's always something worth spending money on."

He'd met a girl in town, a journalism major. He'd thought about marriage for the first time ever. He hadn't said anything to her about it, which might've been a mistake, or might've been some rag of good sense.

"We hadn't seen much of Sarah before. She didn't come into town much. Her father watched out for her like she was spun sugar."

"We agreed," Chris said. "You don't talk about her."

Felt like an icicle on the spine, that did, and he wasn't even looking Buck's way. But you just couldn't watch a friend ram his head into a brick wall forever.

"Once we were out at the ranch, seemed like every time we got anywhere near the main house she turned up. Chris couldn't look anywhere else. He damn near took my head off if I mentioned her name though. Don't know how much her father saw, but he sent the two of us out to ride fence.

"When she came through the door of the line cabin, out a half day's ride from the main house, well, I hoped it was my animal magnetism . . . but I was ready to spend a cold night keeping an eye on the horses, all the same. You don't catch old Buck playing dog in the manger!"

"Not unless you think you've got a hope," J.D. muttered. "And you always think you've got a hope!"

He said it under his breath, so only Buck and the sentinels could hear it, and this was no time to be arguing. Buck didn't bother to smack him. Chris was still glaring at Ezra like the conman had walked off with his cufflinks. Only Vin grinned.

"The first words out of her mouth are, 'Dad thinks you'll take me. When you get back he's told the hands to give you both a beating and run you off . . . and if you can't run nowhere after, he won't mind.'

"'Your dad's a smart man,' Chris tells her. I'm just about slapping my knee that he's in the cross-hairs this time, when Sarah steps in the door . . . and Chris takes a step back."

He looked around the room, wondering if anyone knew what a startlement that had been. Ezra had a hard twist to his smile, like he was hearing gossip on someone he loathed. Vin looked almost sappy.

"I don't get it," J.D. muttered.

"She shakes her head – she had the prettiest red hair and she still wore it down back then – and says, 'He's wrong. You're too smart to claim a guide if she doesn't want you. I'm not scared of you.'"

Ezra smiled like a shiny new bear trap.

"A woman unique among mankind, then."

Next to Buck J.D. twitched at that. Maybe going on like this was a bad idea, but Chris was being an idiot – worse than Ezra, even – and he deserved it. Buck had been silent about Sarah so many years, all for Chris's sake, that he wasn't sure he could stop reminiscing now if he tried.

"Maybe that's not what a boy just making a name for himself wants to hear, when he doesn't understand women at all. Chris puts on a squinty-eyed look like he needs the can, and growls, 'You should be. You think we always get to choose? Either of us?'

"Now remember Sarah's only a couple years older than the kid here, and didn't really know she was a guide until Chris showed up. And she says, 'I scare you twice as much as you scare me. Four times as much!'"

She'd faced Chris like one of those little bristly dogs warning off a panther. Buck couldn't help laughing, even with everything that came after. Ezra looked like he'd gotten creosote on his fancy clothes.

"How . . . appealingly kittenish."

Chris stood up so fast his chair rolled back against the wall and the heavy desk rocked. His weapon slid toward the edge. He slapped a hand down on it. The privacy device rocked and slid too, until Josiah caught the toppling desk one-handed and set it back.

"I guess you had to be there. She was right though. She had him boxed in. The longer she talked the less he said, just standing there listening and looking and breathing . . . . They bonded for the first time that night."

Saying it like that left out everything important. The nest of saddlebags, two bedrolls, and the handsewn quilt Sarah brought with her. Fire on the ramshackle hearth. Water heated at Sarah's half-laughing request. The heartbreaking wonder Chris found in Sarah's words and body. Her awed satisfaction. The man Buck loved and the woman he'd learn to love, beautiful as lilies in the firelight.

Buck had been their guardian. He kept the fire going, filled the kettle when it was emptied, and watched at the door for any sign of the hunt Sarah's father might send after her. The shack hadn't been so big he could stay distant. And Chris, wordless and running on instinct, hadn't warned him away.

What empathy the tests found in Buck let him please the women he bedded as much as they pleased him. He'd never be a guide, any more than he was a sentinel. He couldn't understand their bond even enough to envy it, but that night changed him as profoundly as the pair of them. He had lovers and friends before; one friend in particular. Afterwards, he had a family.

They decided the next morning that the best way to keep Sarah safe was for her and Chris to marry. They'd ridden to town, dodging the search parties her father sent out. The preacher hadn't liked the look of them at first, but Chris glared and Sarah sweet-talked him until marrying them must have seemed the only way to get them out of his parlor.

Hadn't taken more than an hour or two of Sarah and her dad yelling back and forth, before her dad gave up. Didn't mean he liked Chris or ever would, but Sarah got her way. They'd worked like dogs to get the horsefarm running. Maybe they'd been tired sometimes, or sick, or discouraged, but Buck didn't remember it.

Sarah wanted children. They'd had Adam, who had to be the smartest little boy that ever existed, and then there was another baby on the way . . . . As always, Buck shut his memories off there.

No guide could block out all the emotions around him, not alone. Ezra looked half-dazed, and not so much older than J.D. He'd understand now, when Buck explained how much he could look forward to. Chris would be safe. He'd learn to live again. As they rode away from the horsefarm, Sarah had made Buck promise to watch out for him.

Still half lost in the past, Buck looked past Ezra. He thought he'd see the old Chris again, smiling. Sarah's Chris.

"I warned you," Chris said, and brought his weapon up.

He saw what dead men had seen before him, the black eye of the gun less frightening than the black purpose behind it. And then that idiot Ezra stepped in front of him.

Chris didn't bluff. He didn't aim unless he meant to fire. There was no good end to this, only another shot on a workday afternoon, a body staining the office floor.

Between a friend and a guide though, the sentinel needed only one. Buck swung Ezra sideways into J.D. and stepped forward.

"Chris."

"You've done enough, cowboy. Can't go scaring the whole office twice."

How had Vin gotten across the room without Buck noticing? He'd a hand on Chris's arm. The gun dropped easily into his other hand, and Chris flinched as if winged.

He swung, a short jab that shouldn't have had enough force to toss Vin against the wall. The slighter man fell back, the double thunk of his shoulders and skull loud in the small room, and Chris looked at Buck again.

"Stop it. Stop lying to him!"


End file.
